The invention relates to a folding-carton gluing machine comprising a machine frame, an inserter, and conveying means for the flat carton blanks as well as tools such as ripping hooks, diagonal folders and the like which are slidably mounted on a crossbeam and act on the carton blank, are adjustable with respect to their position relative to the blank passing through the machine, and are adapted to be moved from the working position which they are to occupy in the machine into a position in which they are spaced from the working position.
When folding-carton blanks of different sizes are processed in a folding-carton gluing machine, the tools acting on the flat blank, such as ripping hooks, diagonal folders, etc., must be aligned so relative to the blank that they can be relied on to act in a satisfactory and trouble-free manner on blanks being run through the machine at high speed.
To align the tools with a particular carton blank, the latter has up to now been passed slowly from one working station in the machine to the next, and the proper settings have been made on the basis of the blank. This approach to setting up the tools is possible only when the machine is out of operation. In the case of standard folding cartons, setup amounts to 2 to 5 percent of the overall production time for a given number of blanks whereas with folded-bottom boxes it accounts for 30 to 50 percent. These setup times are a real factor when setting up can be done only with the machine shut down. Moreover, this setting-up technique permits coarse settings but not fine settings that would allow very rapid passage of the blanks through the machine, with trouble-free action of the tools on the blanks, without repeated adjustments.
A folding-carton gluing machine is also known in which tools which temporarily are not in use can be moved upward at an angle and thus out of the working area.